[NTG-context] Re: manuals

Hello everyone!  As an eternal newbie (with a memory like a goldfish), I started by building my own documentation from the web pages constructed by Bertrand Masson (prehistory archaeologist in Northern France) "les fiches à Bébert" (obsolete version here: http://bertrandmasson.free.fr/; new recommended version here: http://lesfichesabebert.fr/TeX/context/context-intro.html). As mentionned by Alain Delmotte. Bertrand Masson always keeps his site up to date, as he gives references to the documentation compiled by Garulfo (Joaquín Ataz López ), available in several languages, which I personally found well-done, useful and welcome. It's interesting to note with a rather positive smile that documentations, even if they're never really up to date in the details of ConTeXt's evolution, copy each other: that's what I did to write the beginning of a Wikibook in French (https://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/ConTeXt/Qu%27est-ce_que_ConTeXt_%3F). I took things written by Bertrand Masson and was partially taken over by Garulfo and so on. Fortunately, the ConTeXT discussion list offers MWEs: all you have to do is to test them and save these examples on your system in the CTX-TESTS document folder. The next step is to classify these examples under the appropriate headings, then insert them into a coding system for a complex document that always calls for requests for explanations from discussion list participants. This question of documentation seems to me to be an age-old snake, not only on a technical subject which can be complex, as ConTeXt can be, but also concerning other types of documentation. For my part, although I haven't yet exhausted all the available documentation resources, whether internal to the distribution, or online like the ConTeXt Garden wiki, I think (but this has been better expressed here by others than me) that a real documentation refresh could be carried out collectively, with the great ambition of keeping obsolete documentation in an archive, while proposing a wiki with the date of update visible, in correlation with the PDF version. I have no idea how this documentation update could be achieved, but the fact is that it would be desirable to devote a section to the purely technical and basic aspects of CTX installation and font availability on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, BSD, etc., with MWEs and examples a little more detailed. Once this documentation has been passed as an introductory part (itself containing chapters explaining how this page of documentation was put together, with notes in the margins, etc.), this book could introduce MKIV, LuaTeX, MetaPost and so on, but with a clear distinction between the objectives sought: writing documentation with figures, writing a thesis in mathematics and physics, how to construct figures, or a bibliography. Not to mention the handling of photographs in an aesthetically demanding layout; all this with the possibility of showing complete or partial examples of work produced... In a nutshell: even if I give the impression that I'm asking you to reinvent the wheel, in reality it's a question of collating relevant existing information in a way that is intelligible and clear to the neophyte, but that also meets the demands of experienced users, who don't all use ConTeXt for the same reasons. Don't get me wrong: I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just giving you my opinion. Basically, I'm saying: documentation exists, but it has to be reliable, up to date, easy to find and enable you to make progress in difficult situations. As I said, I found Garulfo's work very welcome. It's not obsolete and doesn't need replacing. But perhaps it could be amended on certain points and completed and made available both in PDF and online in the ConTeXt Garden wiki pages? So, if by hypothesis the relevant documentation exists, here and there, but it's in the middle of pages that are in the past, it can be considered a daunting task to go looking for information that you realize is no longer up to date, because experience shows that it's no longer reliable. If confusion reigns, those seeking to apply what they've read risk turning away from ConTeXt, or asking the same questions over and over again. So there's plenty of food for thought to be had when it comes to methods for overhauling existing documentation. It's not a question of thinking long and hard about the availability of this documentation (on line or as a PDF?), but rather of knowing whether to build an encyclopedia, or a series of manuals, each of which is intended to circumscribe as closely as possible the problems encountered when attempting this or that form of page layout. I remember being astonished to discover, when I first started learning ConTeXt, all the vocabulary that existed around page layout (in French: Grand fond, petit fond, blanc de tête, blanc de pied, etc.), vocabulary that we ignore when we come from Word office automation (see here: http://www.lesfichesabebert.fr/TeX/context/MiseEnPage.html). Over the years, my initial astonishment hasn't completely disappeared, since I consider ConTeXt to be a particularly powerful tool that allows many things, even if I'm not able to produce them easily. The resources are considerable, depending on the questions asked on the discussion list, and even if I don't do anything other than write courses and layout all kinds of texts. In any case (and I'll say it again), I don't think there's any need to start from scratch. But a systematic collection of information, presented in an orderly fashion (by subject or by notion?), showing how to reach the goal you've set yourself, respecting the rules of the art of publishing, going from the simple to the complex, would be a good thing. The question before us is: how and by whom? Hans rightly replied, "Days only have 24 hours". This is true for him and even for those of us who, like me, are really basic users. The fact remains, however, that the ConTeXt Garden wiki has in recent years proved to be the place where you can contribute to modifying existing information, or shed new light on it, while at the same time responding to the problems you encounter. Perhaps we should clean up this wiki while at the same time recovering ConTeXt's internal documentation, to give it a bit of a polish? Le 16/02/2024 à 10:02, Tommaso Gordini a écrit :

I add to the list the articles on ConTeXt that have appeared in TUGboat issues over the years.

https://tug.org/TUGboat/Contents/listkeyword.html#CatTAGConTeXt

Ciao Tommaso

Il giorno gio 15 feb 2024 alle ore 17:39 Alain Delmotte ha scritto:

One could also have a look at

https://www.lesfichesabebert.fr/TeX/TeX.html

It is website introducing Context in French. The author was using LaTeX, but he switched to Context for his work maintaining a regular publication.

Note: the site is now under reworking, but it is very interesting.

Alain

Le 14-02-24 à 23:25, Hans Hagen via ntg-context a écrit :

...

There's also:

https://github.com/contextgarden/not-so-short-introduction-to-context

Hans

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